


Above the Waves

by JehanetteProuvaire



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Genre: Drabbles I guess, Gen, How We Got Here, spousal abuse, villains are villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JehanetteProuvaire/pseuds/JehanetteProuvaire
Summary: A peek at how five people on the Nautilus got there in the first place.





	Above the Waves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FleetSparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts).

Vincenzo Santorini

He’s done a lot of things he’s not proud of.

No, really. A lot. You wouldn’t believe just how many. The list could go on and on and on if you ask him, and many would advise you not to. 

(Those would be the people who have asked him. It is always best to learn from experience.)

(Vinnie would tell you so himself.)

He’s done a lot of things he’s not proud of, but then, hasn’t any man? It’s what separates them from the beasts. Animals don’t care a bit about whether they’ve anything to be proud of or not. They merely act, and whether it’s something good or bad, it’s simply what they do. A mother bear doesn’t think she’s doing anything good when she protects her cubs from a predator; she only thinks of how she may have her line carry on. A lion doesn’t care about the grace of the gazelle it mauls; it only thinks about filling its belly.

This is what Vinny tells himself as he takes up too much space when parking his auto, when he pockets a few paper clips (that no one would even notice were missing anyway, so really there’s no harm in that), when he rearranges the bouquets in a local florist’s shop because the color arrangement is all wrong. He is better than an animal. At least he feels some shame. Would a rat? Would a tiger?

No. So neither will Vinny. Shame is enough.

This is what he tells himself as they go to strip the city of Atlantis of its treasures. It’s hard to understand why this time it isn’t enough.

Dr. Joshua Strongbear Sweet

Is there every a way to grow used to being underground? If so, he hasn’t found it. He misses the sky above him, the grass around him. He even misses cities, sometimes. Those were never as pleasant as open space, but they did have their merits.

Proper medicine, for one thing. He learned some things from his mother, and he will always honor what she taught him about the body and the earth, and how the two can heal each other, but he also has a soft spot in his heart for gauze and antiseptic. Some things he knows in his heart, but some things have been proven by science.

There is always space in the world for both. He’s believed that since he was sixteen, and he doesn’t plan to stop believing until the day before he dies.

That was why, when he heard about a mission to a lost city sunk beneath the waves, he wasn’t scornful. He laughed -- who wouldn’t? -- but he didn’t immediately dismiss the notion. Of course a place like that could exist. Of course it could be possible.

And of course, if he could make a better life for himself from going there, he would. His family on both sides had suffered, going back generations. Surely he ought to find some happiness in the world.

Audrey Rocio Ramirez

When Mateo Rocio met Elena Ramirez, it was love at first sight. It was just the same when Audrey saw her first broken down automobile. Her heart skipped a beat, stuttered like a choking engine, then started hopping away deep inside her like those dances Mamá tried teaching her and her sister for when they were older.

_”They’ll catch the eyes of every boy, mijita,”_ she’d said with a wink of one of those large, dark eyes both girls inherited. _”But be careful. Ramirez girls have always caught eyes too quick. You make sure whatever boy you want catches your eye too.”_

But it wasn’t a boy that caught her eye, and as she pushed open the hood to catch a glimpse of the engine, Audrey decided she didn’t care whether one ever would. This was what she loved. This was what she wanted. To see how things fit together, to take something broken and make it sing again, maybe even to build something new that hadn’t existed before? That was real love. That was real magic.

Love could wait a while. Hell, it could wait forever. Audrey had something better now.

Audrey had a skill.

Helga Sinclair

She had not been in Namibia. That had been her brother’s place. Darling Michael Schumacker, golden boy of the family, was the one to go there and help expand the Empire. He was the one to help all but wipe out two peoples. He was the one to write a secret letter to her, horror-stricken with what he had done and seen.

And she had thrown the letter in the fire, because she had enough troubles of her own. Michael would be fine. He always was. She was the one who needed fretting about, because she was the one no one ever worried about. Not when she mentioned she hated her husband. Not when she told her family he had struck her, omitting that it had not been the first time. Not when she begged Michael to come rescue her.

She would be all right, he had said in response. All women were nervous about marriage and their husbands. All would be well in time. She only had to give it that time. 

Helga didn’t trust that she would have that time. She didn’t trust Mr. Daniel Sinclair, with his rich English accent and his rich English house. She didn’t trust his sharp eyes and sharper tongue. Maybe all would be well in time. Maybe she would be dead.

Put that way, there was only one thing to do. As Michael Schumacher mourned his ideals, Helga Sinclair pretended to mourn her husband.

Lyle Rourke

“Lyle” means “the island”. Of course that meant Ireland.

“Rourke” came from “O’Rourke”, but the O was dropped so the family could better fit in America. Again, Ireland.

But Tiberius? That came from Rome. That elevated him above the other Irish-Americans he lived with. When his family was insulted, when his intelligence was mocked, when he walked past those signs in windows saying that No Irish Need Apply, he remembered Tiberius, the Roman emperor. He had stood above everyone. Lyle would as well.

Precisely what Tiberius had done as emperor, Lyle neither knew nor cared. All he knew was that it was a name of great import. A man named Lyle Rourke might never accomplish anything at all. 

A man named Tiberius might shatter the world.


End file.
